


Switch

by airdeari



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Clover + Aoi BFFs XOXO, Established Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-17 11:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8142487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari
Summary: [[OLD]]Two-time Nonary Game survivors with dangerous jobs have a lot of emotional baggage. On a related note, three mentally ill people probably shouldn’t share a small bathroom without some planning if one of them is blind, or things might get unnecessarily dramatic at 12:47 P.M. on a Tuesday, for instance. But they’ll be okay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> See the "works inspired by" to see the updated version of this piece. It's a lot less... thirteen-year-old-ish.
> 
> [[OLD]]
> 
> Fair warning, I've held off on posting this because it feels like my thirteen-year-old consciousness inhabited my body to come up with this plot, that's how unnecessarily dramatic this is.

Light said he used to be more of a morning person before he started playing so many concerts at night. It was hard for him to keep his internal clock in synch with the rest of the world when the light of day never made it through his eyes. He woke up between eight and ten most mornings, though occasionally he could sleep until noon after a late night. It was half-past twelve when Light, with a blanket draped over his shoulders, trudged groggily into the kitchen, where Clover was packing veggies and fruits in preparation for a long shift at the café, and Aoi was tossing himself a salad after a morning full of phone calls and errands.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Aoi teased.

“ _Afternoon_ ,” Clover corrected with a sneer. “I thought I wasn’t even gonna see you today! I’m gone until late tonight, remember?”

Light, whose face had fallen when he heard Clover give an indication of the time, sighed, “Yes, I remember.”

He moved slowly through the kitchen, gripping rather than touching the edge of the countertops to navigate. Aoi wondered if he had just woken up, but when he stopped Light for a good-morning kiss, he tasted mint, felt the touch of two hands, and even smelled the floral citrus of Light’s orange blossom shower soap. He touched a hand to the back of Light’s head and felt only a cool dampness, as if his hair had been air-drying after a shower for at least an hour.

“You sleep okay?” Aoi asked. “I thought you went to bed pretty early last night.”

Light frowned; so did Clover. “I did, didn’t I,” he murmured. “If I’ve been up for about an hour and a half, how long was I in bed?”

Aoi glanced at the clock on the microwave and dialed back the time in his head to count the hours. “Uh, over twelve hours, actually. You… feeling okay?”

“Maybe you’re coming down with something,” Clover suggested, playing with the zipper on her plastic bag full of carrot and pepper slices.

The wrinkles of doubt smoothed away on Light’s face. “That sounds likely,” he decided. “Preemptive apologies may be in order, Aoi.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. Go sit down, I’ll fix you somethin’.”

Light did not have much of an appetite, it turned out. He was content to drink a large glass of orange juice for its Vitamin C, but ate only a single slice of toast with jam. Over the mealtime conversation, they discovered that his mind was as sluggish as his body, despite how long he had been awake. He said he had only started feeling more tired since getting up. Clover had ten minutes before she had to leave but had not yet changed into her uniform. Her worried eyes locked onto her brother.

“How about you just go back to bed, babe?” Aoi said. “If your body wants sleep that much, you should probably listen.”

Light twisted his empty glass around in his hand. “Probably,” he mumbled.

“You went off your antidepressants, right?” Clover blurted.

Aoi frowned, first at Clover, then at Light, then back at Clover when he decided that Light would not be able to appreciate his frowning.

“About a month ago, yes,” Light said, reaching underneath the table for Aoi’s hand. “By recommendation and under supervision. I’ve experienced no ill effects.”

“Well, what if it… what if it came back?” Clover said. “You used to… you were always sleepy like this, remember? And you didn’t eat, either.”

Aoi squeezed Light’s hand. Light was slow to squeeze back. With his other hand, he slid his fingers slowly down the sides of his glass, drawing lines in the remaining condensation.

“A cold seems more likely at this point,” he said. “If it persists, I’ll address it. You don’t need to worry.”

Clover worried anyway. She stood rigid with her hands clasped tightly in front of her stomach, chewing her lip.

“If it’s the afternoon,” Light said with an accusatory grin, “aren’t you late for your café shift?”

“Nah, it’s not one yet. She’s still got a few minutes to get out the door if she wants to make it in time,” Aoi said. He squeezed Light’s fingers between his as he slipped his hand back. “But she’s still not in uniform, so she’s _gonna_ be late if she doesn’t hurry it up.”

“Whatever!” Clover groaned, stomping her foot. “I can change there! All the other girls change there, anyway, and it still counts as clocking in on time.”

Light rested his cheek in his palm with a lazy smile. “What more do you want from me, Clover?” he sighed. “I’ll rest. If you’re concerned about tonight—”

“It’s not about tonight!” she protested. “It’s about _you_.”

He set his mouth in a hard line. “We’ll have to find another time for this fruitless discussion,” he said, rising swiftly from his chair. “I’m doing just fine. You should… get… going.”

It was another one of those moments where the possibility played out in Aoi’s head before he saw it happen. He never knew if it was some kind of micro-SHIFT, or if he just subconsciously noticed the small details—the way Light’s arm wobbled as he held the back of his chair on his ascent, the sudden loss of affect on his face as he struggled to end his sentence, the uncertain sway of his lanky body—and predicted what would happen next if he did not make a move.

Aoi jumped up in such a frenzy that his chair clattered to the ground, but it was not the only chair to topple. Light leaned too heavily on the back of his chair, throwing it and himself off-balance as his hand slipped off of his only support. Like every time that Aoi ran to catch Light—usually during a mishap with stairs or a similar stumble—he remembered lunging forward and throwing his hands behind Light’s head but never how he got to holding Light’s weight securely in his arms.

A beat late, Clover shrieked. Over the sound of her voice, Aoi called, “Light, you okay?! You awake?!” as he lowered Light’s limp body to the floor, watching his twitching face for signs of consciousness.

Almost immediately, Light’s eyes fluttered open. “Orthostatic hypotension,” he mumbled.

“What the fuck?”

“Lowered blood pressure when standing,” he translated, turning his head toward the sound of Clover’s knees hitting the floor beside him. “I’m fine.”

Aoi gritted his teeth. “Light, you fucking fainted.”

“I was perfectly conscious, just dizzy,” he said.

“So dizzy you collapsed. That’s _fainting_ , you piece of shit,” Aoi snapped.

Light winced. “I—I’ve always caught myself when I—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Light’s eyes shot wide open when Aoi slid his arms underneath his slender body and hoisted him into the air. “Aoi, I can stand, I assure you. This isn’t—”

“I said shut the fuck up!” Aoi shouted, his fingers curling into Light’s arm and leg. “I can’t decide whether I’m taking you to your bedroom or my fucking car so I can drive you to the fucking _hospital_ , but you sure as fuck ain’t walkin’ anywhere! You’re _not_ okay!”

His voice was going weak. His arms were shaking, though Light was far too thin to put any strain on his muscles. He was sucking in air through his clenched teeth, and it came out in shudders.

“Aoi, I promise I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Light said calmly. “This is the same mechanism that causes anyone to feel lightheaded after getting up quickly. I have naturally low blood pressure, so the effect is more pronounced for me. That’s all.”

Aoi stared long and hard into Light’s cloudy eyes, which almost seemed to be looking back. He glanced over his shoulder at Clover, who, after taking a moment to unfreeze, nodded quickly as if this sounded familiar to her.

“You promise,” he said to Light.

Light nodded. “I would never lie to you about something like this.”

Aoi slowed his heavy exhale with pursed lips. “Bedroom,” he decided uneasily.


	2. Chapter 2

Clover scurried ahead of Aoi to open Light’s door and pull back the bedspread. Aoi kept asking questions, partially because he wanted the answers, and partially because he wanted Light to keep talking.

“How often you get blood pressure drops like this?”

“Not commonly. Sometimes adding another arm to my circulatory system can put me over the edge for a moment while my body adjusts.”

“You got any meds for this?”

“Nothing like that.”

Aoi grimaced. “ _Should_ you have meds for it?”

“No, I should disconnect my arm.”

He rolled his eyes, groaning as he laid Light on the mattress. “Where’s your socket plug? Bathroom?” he asked. “Clover, can you…”

When he looked over his shoulder at her, he saw tears clinging to her long, dark lashes. His already pounding heart gave an extra throb.

“Stop, you’ll have to do your makeup over again, and then you’ll _really_ be late,” he said, hopping away from the bed. “Give your brother a hug or something and get going. I’ll take care of everything.”

With a choked sob, she darted to Light’s side, falling into his one-and-a-quarter arms. Aoi slipped into the bathroom.

The socket plug’s usual residence was beside the tub, where Light picked it up after brushing his teeth for the night, and where he deposited it after his morning shower.  Aoi was taken aback the first time he saw Light remove his cybernetic arm in clear lighting because his residual limb was not purely flesh. The metal pins and cables that interfaced with his prosthetic—“These carry and translate electrical impulses for the nerves, sensory here and motor here, and these tubes integrate the ABT fluid with my natural blood supply,” he had explained, and so on—were a permanent fixture of his body. He had to wear a plug in the shower to protect the electronics, as well as in bed so that he did not roll over and bend a pin. It had the same mouth as the prosthetic limb, same inputs and outputs, but it was just a knob of lightweight plastic.

Aoi snatched up the plug but headed on towards the sink. Light’s daily medications sat out on the counter—two mystery prescriptions, Aoi did not want to pry, and a bottle of eye drops—even though he usually put them back inside the mirror cabinet. It at least told Aoi that he had taken everything he was supposed to. Aoi yanked open the cabinet, maybe to put them back, maybe to look for the medication he knew did not exist in their apartment that would stabilize Light’s blood pressure, maybe for the rightmost little pill bottle on the top shelf that his own shaking hands needed right now, no matter how much he hated relying on it.

He closed his eyes and weighed the pros and cons. He would not feel the effects of the pill for another half-hour at the very least, after which point he might not even need it anymore, and then he would just feel tired for the next four hours. On the other hand, Light might not show any indications of recovery for another four hours, and the drug would keep Aoi calm throughout that time. It would also mean that, should Light’s condition worsen, they would have to rely on an ambulance to take him to the hospital, because Aoi would not be able to drive.

Aoi sighed and closed his fingers around the bottle when his thoughts ran away in that direction. The imperfect cure lay in his hand. When he opened his eyes to glare at the bottle, he saw something he should not have.

**Field, Light.**

Aoi snatched up the medications beside the sink. One bottle of pills had Light’s name, which he dropped back to the counter, but the other had Aoi’s. It was the same drug, with the exact same instructions for usage. There was only one discrepancy between their labels other than the names, but it was a critical one.

“Light?” Aoi called. He wrapped his fingers under the lids of the nearly identical bottles and walked out of the bathroom, the plug in his other hand. “Did you take all the stuff that’s out on the counter in there?”

Light frowned. Clover had calmed enough to stand upright. She rubbed her eyes carefully with one hand while she kept the other folded in Light’s fingers.

“Did I leave it out?” he mumbled.

“Never mind that. You took it all?” Aoi pressed. “The Valera, too?”

Light nodded, still frowning. “They don’t have any interactions.”

“Light, I think you took _my_ Valera.”

His eyes flickered open while Clover’s went wide. It was only a mild coincidence that they shared a prescription for the same drug. Valera was the frontrunner in a new class of anti-anxiety medications, most popular for its ability to prevent and quell panic attacks.

“Which explains why you’re conked the fuck out,” Aoi said with a small smile. “Mine’s a fucking tranquilizer on your pansy ass. It’s literally five times your dose.”

Clover clapped her hands over her mouth. Light let his fall ajar without covering it. “I—I felt the pill before I,” he stammered. “It was the right…”

Aoi held up the bottles to peer through the orange plastic. “They’re the exact same shape, yup,” he said. “Only difference is mine’s blue.”

Light grimaced. Ordinarily he laughed it off when features of the abled world were needlessly inaccessible to him, like when his renewed credit card no longer had embossed print for his name and number, or when touch screens began to replace mechanical keypads at cash registers. He had always laughed about colors.

“Is—is he gonna be okay?” Clover whimpered. “He’s not…”

“Nah, you need a shit ton to… It’s not a problem.” Aoi gave her a pat on the shoulder before leaning over the bed to slide Light’s socket plug into his arm. “He’s just gonna be a big, sleepy baby for the next few hours. Hypotension, right there on the label, it’s a side effect. How much did you take, babe?”

“Just one this morning,” Light said. “I… may have also taken yours a few times yesterday. I suppose I can’t be sure.”

Aoi had read something else on the label that made him lose his easy smile.

“Would explain why you slept like a log,” he muttered. “Clover, you should really get moving. I’ll be home, I can…”

Clover still had half of her lower lip clamped between her teeth and tears in her round eyes. Aoi made room by Light’s side, gesturing her closer so that she could take another moment with her brother before departing. She shook her head and made the same gesture at him as she backed towards the door.

“Light, I’ll be right back. Gonna help Clover get to work on time,” Aoi lied.

“Bye, Light. Love you,” she said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever realize you should probably stop googling benzodiapezines and decide "screw it it's the future" and make something up? I feel a little less bad about this trainwreck of a story now.
> 
> Coming up: less melodrama, more actual drama. With, like, emotions and stuff.


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as Aoi shut the door, Clover stifled a sob and tore off to her room. Aoi would not have pursued had she not just indicated that he should follow her. In her open doorway, he hesitated before stepping onto her plush carpet. Still choking over a desperate need to cry, she grabbed necessary articles from the floor and from her closet, intermittently rubbing away her tears on her arm.

Aoi shut the door behind him. “You know he heard you running,” he said. “He can probably hear you crying. He can probably hear me talking right now. And he can receive stuff through the field without you even knowing he heard it. So what’s the point of hiding like this?”

There was a fire in Clover’s wet eyes when she faced him with her arms full of clothes, electronics, and makeup. “Why are you so _mean_ to him?” she demanded.

Aoi blinked. “Mean?” he repeated. “What did I—when was I…?”

“You call him mean names all the time, and you—”

“It’s not—he knows I’m joking. We do it to each other, we—we’re joking, it’s just—”

“You _yelled_ at him,” Clover protested, her face going red and tight as her eyes welled up with more tears. “When he was… you _yelled_ at him, and you called him…”

He had called Light a piece of shit. It was a common epithet between the two of them, but when Aoi had screamed it in the kitchen after lunch, over Light’s barely conscious body, he had done so with real fury.

“I was… I was upset,” Aoi said, glancing at the ground as he scratched his head. “He gets it. I get mad when I’m worried. That’s all. He knows that.”

“I know that, too!” Clover shouted. “It still _hurts_ when you say something like that, even if I know why you said it! It still… it’s still scary, Aoi.”

It had not taken long after Aoi moved in with the Fields for Clover to adjust to calling him by his real name instead of Santa, but Aoi found he still had not adjusted to hearing her say it. It made them something more than acquaintances, perhaps even more than friends. Every time he heard his name on her lips, he could not help but think of his ever-shifting relationship with this girl.

His hands fell to his sides. “I’ll talk to him,” he mumbled. “I’ll… You’re right, okay? You’re right. I’m sorry.”

They stood in front of the door for an awkward silence, not making eye contact. Aoi finally glanced up to see Clover’s blotchy cheeks, streaked and smeared with grey from her mascara and eyeliner running with her tears.

“C’mon, let’s fix up your makeup so you can head to work,” he said, smiling.

She sniffed once, glancing up with glistening eyes. “Is it bad?” she asked.

He lifted a hand slowly to her face, combing her bangs back. “It’s a pretty solid smoky eye, except for the streaking,” he replied.

“Aoi…”

“Seriously, it looks fine. Just throw on some concealer and you’ll be good. Okay?”

It was almost unconscious when he pressed a kiss to her forehead. He had never kissed her before, not even in the goofy selfies they sent to Alice and Akane when they went out together, but it felt so natural that he did not even realize he had done it until after he had wrapped her in a one-armed hug.

“You need a ride to work?” Aoi asked as he tentatively drew his arm back.

“N—no, it’s okay,” she said quickly, staring at the bundle of items nearly spilling out of her open hands. “It’s lunchtime, so traffic is—it’ll be faster if I walk, anyway, I think, it’s so close.”

She slipped around Aoi, a blank look in her eyes. “Don’t forget your snack. Kitchen table,” he called after her. “Good luck tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clover + aoi bffs 4eva fight me


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is like three times as long as the other ones because Light and Aoi just won't shut up, ever

Aoi cleaned up after Clover’s hurricane with his phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, designating all of his appointments and meetings for the afternoon to subordinates. When all of the dishes were in the dishwasher and the perishables returned to the fridge, he returned to Light’s bedroom while hanging up from his final call. Light had not left the bed, but he was fiddling with one of the pill bottles.

“You alright?” Aoi asked.

“Could you read me the name on this?” Light replied, holding out the bottle. “There is a small pocket of air under the label for this one. I’ll be able to distinguish them from now on, I just… need to know which is which.”

Aoi pressed his finger softly against the pill bottle. He was learning how to initiate touch without startling Light: indirect contact was best at first, like brushing against clothing before skin. His hand wrapped around the pill bottle, and he read Light’s name again. His eyes skimmed over the usage directions again.

“This one’s yours,” he sighed.

To return it to Light’s palm, he led with a finger extended. It was best to touch him with a bare hand, both to control the pressure—feather light at first, to ease into contact—and to feel less like a mystery obstacle and more like a human.

 “So,” Aoi said, sliding his phone into his pocket. “Let’s skip the bullshit.”

Light reached for the side table and replaced the bottle, his face unassuming.

“You’ve got the same instructions on yours as mine. You’re supposed to take this as a when-you-need-it kind of deal.” Aoi folded his arms. “Mind explainin’ why you’re takin’ it regularly?”

Light sighed. He did not speak, did not move, just hung his head in shame.

“Hey, c’mon, say something.” Aoi took cautious steps towards the bed. “Is somethin’ up? You can… you can talk to me, right?”

“It’s nothing,” Light stated. “It’s not a problem, I promise.”

“You… _can_ talk to me, right?” Aoi asked. “Light?”

He remembered the way Light had winced when he shouted in the kitchen, his mouth too close to Light’s sensitive ears.

“Listen, ba—Light, listen, I,” Aoi said, crouching by the bedside, “I flipped out on you earlier. I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to get all mad like that, but I—I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m really sorry.”

Light shook his head. “You don’t need to apologize for that.”

“I think I do,” Aoi said. “I think you just soak up all this shit talk from me and say it’s okay when it’s _not_. And you don’t tell me it’s not okay, and you don’t tell me _you’re_ not okay, and then you’re fucking popping Valera nonstop when you know that’s gonna fuck you up long-term, and then you’ll get stuck on the fucking tranquilizer dose like I did, and that’s shit, lemme tell you, because it still takes you the _fuck_ out like this, but that’s the only thing you can do to make your brain stop anymore.”

Aoi paused for a breath. He let it go on a sigh, then inhaled again.

“So. Is everything okay?”

The empty left sleeve of Light’s T-shirt shifted as if he intended to move an arm forward that he no longer had. He tried his right arm next, and his hand latched onto the front of Aoi’s shirt.

“Okay,” he uttered in a strained voice. “You… may be right about this. Give me a moment to… put my thoughts together.”

Aoi’s heart gave an uncertain patter as he stumbled closer. “S-sure,” he said. “Scoot over and I’ll sit with you, okay?”

He mostly had to scoot Light himself; Light had turned into little more than a rag doll but for the claw-like grip he kept on Aoi’s shirt. He took this chance to let his head roll to Aoi’s chest, face buried in cloth. Aoi wrapped one arm behind Light’s neck, clutching his shoulder, while the other snaked around his slender waist. When Light shuddered and Aoi realized why, it filled him with empathetic pain and a morbid fascination.

Aoi had once asked Light why he kept his eyes closed most of the time when they appeared physically healthy, aside from the cloudiness in the pupils. He said that he knew it was unnerving when someone’s eyes did not quite make it to your face, but the bigger reason was physiological.  Among the many damaged parts of his eyes were his tear ducts, which underperformed to this day. Closing his eyes kept them from drying out without constantly administering his prescribed eye drops. Aoi did not even know until now, when he felt a touch of dampness against his chest, that Light was capable of crying.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered after several minutes.

“Don’t.” Aoi kissed his hair. “S’what boyfriends are for or somethin’. You still wanna talk about it?”

“It’s Clover,” Light said, breaking in and out of a soft speaking voice. “The mission tonight.”

Aoi dropped another kiss into his hair. “Yeah, you always get antsy when she gets scheduled for something,” he muttered. “So you take stuff every time she’s on deck?”

“Not… not every mission,” he said. “This one is… It’s _them_ again.”

Ever since the turn of the New Year, Free The Soul had gone mostly quiet, their mission snipped in the bud by the successful completion of the Decision Game. Leaderless stragglers remained, spread across the world. SOIS still considered these fractured groups a threat, while Crash Keys saw them as potential homes for the alleged terrorist.

“I know they… they aren’t what they used to be,” Light said. “But that was still… Clover’s first mission was…”

Aoi rubbed a hand up and down Light’s bony spine. He knew this story, though he did not remember where or when he had heard it. Little seeds Light’s knowledge and memories had a way of drifting to Aoi through the morphogenetic field and planting themselves deep within his mind, the roots weaving seamlessly in with the rest of his neural network.

“She was… I never want that to happen again,” Light uttered. “She could barely transmit, she was so…”

Aoi held Light closer still. “It’s been a long time since then,” he murmured. “They’re weaker, and she’s way more experienced. You know she’ll be fine.”

“I do know.” Light slipped his hand around to Aoi’s back, the first movement he had made in ten minutes. “Knowing it isn’t enough. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know. But you still try to logic away all your feelings, don’t you?” Aoi sighed. “Logic and drugs. The imperfect substitute for actually havin’ to _feel_ shit.”

Light gave an amused “hmph” that sounded close enough to a laugh for Aoi to crack a smile.

“I don’t wanna keep you from gettin’ some sleep,” he said. “Does Clover need you to receive tonight?”

Light shook his head. “She doesn’t… _need_ me, strictly speaking, but…”

“Yeah, moral support. Gotcha.” Aoi kissed him again. “Can you resonate with her like this or is it gonna kill your concentration?”

“It’s… foggy.”

“Wait, you’re resonating right now?”

“That’s my secret, Aoi. I’m always resonating.”

“Wait, that’s—how—why the fuck would you even watch the Avengers?  It’s all action, you wouldn’t—”

“The first movie came out when we were in elementary school. I could still see then.”

“Oh. Huh.”

They settled back against the pillows. Light made a silent request for Aoi to stay beside him with the tangling of their legs. In the dark circles under his closed eyes, drying tears still glistened. Aoi slid his thumbs up from Light’s jawline to the damp spots above his cheekbones. He knew from experience with stray eyelashes that it was the only way to keep from startling Light with a touch in a sensitive area.

“I still don’t understand why it should help to share my worries with someone else,” Light muttered. “It makes no sense. You’ve said nothing I haven’t already considered, myself. I’ve now burdened you with my troubles. And yet I feel better.”

“It’s like humans evolved biological mechanisms that reward social behavior because they needed to band together for survival or some shit.”

Light pouted. “I will never ask you to read me books again if all you intend to do is use the knowledge against me like this.”

“God, it’s just… fucking anthropology, it’s just how it is,” Aoi groaned. “It’s boring as all hell to read but then you just start seein’ the shit all over, like in real life.”

“I’m glad you’re taking such an interest in it, because I’ve discovered a PDF scan that my screen reader can’t parse on the anthropological implications of the existence of the morphogenetic field.”

“Light, babe, all public papers on field theory are bullshit pseudoscience.”

“That’s why I abuse my SOIS security clearance for reading material.”

“Fuckin’ nerd.”

Aoi slipped his phone out of his pocket in the silence. It gave a small vibration every time his thumb tapped on the capacitive touch screen keyboard.

“Please continue to take calls if you need to, dear,” Light said. “I’m not doing much, after all.”

“Nah, it’s not that. Don’t worry about it.”

Three seconds after Aoi hit _confirm_ , Light’s phone startled him with a harsh vibration against the wooden desk. What startled him even more was the loud, robotic voice that read the notification, “ _Aoi Kurashiki changed smug jackass’s conversation name to Sleeping Beauty_.”

“That honestly doesn’t bother me, Aoi,” Light said, smiling.

“No, that was—it’s been that for a week! And it’s not even funny!” Aoi could not stop himself from sounding like he was floundering for excuses. “This was… _topical_. I was just inspired.”

“If you stop giving me stupid nicknames in your phone, I’ll never get that sense of satisfaction from knowing I’ve riled you up over something trivial.”

“You _ass_.”

“Ah! There it is again,” Light sighed with a wistful grin.

Aoi deposited his phone on the side table rather than return it to his pocket, giving his legs more flexibility to curl up against Light. His finger traced absently along Light’s pale collarbone. Light was breathing easier, even smiling, now that idle conversation bounced between them like usual.

“You’ll allow me to return this favor, won’t you?” he asked.

“What favor?”

“Don’t be coy. You repress your emotions just as much as I do, dear,” replied Light. “If you’d like to explore the biological mechanism that rewards social behavior, I am always available.”

“Talk _more_ like a computer,” Aoi muttered. “Feelin’ real keen on sharin’ my feelings with a robot.”

“I am a _cyborg_ , not a robot. We’ve discussed this.”

“Did they replace your frontal lobe with a computer, too? Overrides all those human emotions?”

“You really have been learning! It _would_ be the frontal lobe.” Light pressed what felt disturbingly like a patronizing kiss of congratulations to Aoi’s forehead. “Tragically, no, my brain is entirely biological and therefore prone to imperfect neurochemistry. It does allow me access to the morphic fieldset, however, which I admit is how I know you’re troubled by something right now.”

Aoi slid his head back, as if the four extra inches of distance between their heads would keep their consciousnesses from linking in the field. “Quit pokin’ around in there,” he grumbled. “It’s… it’s something I gotta clear up on my own, anyway. With… someone.”

“Someone?” Light repeated, wearing a curious smile.

“How’s your connection with Clover?” Aoi asked. “Any neat SOIS tricks you can try? To resonate better, I mean.”

Light sighed as soon as the topic appeared to have changed, but obliged to reply. “There are plenty of gimmicks, most of them tricks of the mind and placebos rather than actual techniques, but…” He smirked. “You’re going to find this incredibly sappy.”

“Oh, great. Let’s hear it.”

“When it comes to the moment of resonance, nothing has helped me more than simply thinking about… how much I love her.”

Aoi snorted. “Cute.”

“Veritably.”

Aoi had felt flashes of Clover before, though he could count the occurrences on one hand. He never knew whether he received them through Light or by his own volition, but there was no better time to investigate the latter possibility.

He thought of Clover’s smile this morning, how she had hugged him when he slid a perfectly-fried egg from the pan onto her toasted bagel, how his heart hurt when she crept into their bedroom at night, tears in her eyes, how he wanted to hold her for eternities on end even if it could not fix anything, how he had kissed her forehead before she left, how he had felt that urge to kiss her a dozen times before.

He loved Clover, too.

Another one of those flashes came into his head. It was a wave of sensation, a flush of heat and the fruity smell of her moisturizer. There was a wash of light, a blurry picture, but it faded out of his head within a second. He clung to what he could—to the scent, the warmth—and called out, _Clover?_

The warmth faded. Aoi thought he had lost her until he heard a flat voice respond, _New phone who dis._

A laugh burst through his lips at the sound. _It’s Aoi. Can you hear me?_

Everything felt pleasantly warm again, like electricity was running through his veins, maybe her veins. _I thought so!_ she cried out with excitement. _How’d you get here?!_

_Asked for tips from your brother._ Aoi wriggled closer to Light. _I just wanted to see if… if he’s too tired to stay up tonight, to see if you could… switch receivers, I guess, if you need to._

She did not send him any more spoken messages, but the sensations kept coming. Sounds of laughter, including her own. The taste of a forbidden sliver of chocolate cake, and its intoxicating aroma. It was the full-sensory equivalent of the texts she sent Aoi that featured only emoticons, to let him know how she was doing without having to say a word.

“So that’s the constant stream you were talkin’ about,” Aoi mumbled. “She’s cute.”

“You certainly are your sister’s brother,” Light sighed.

“Take a nap, babe. I got this.” He kissed Light’s cheek. “I got everything. You just rest.”

“If I weren’t so tired, we would talk about how your instinctive response to stress is to shoulder every possible burden you can carry in an attempt to assume total control over a situation,” Light warned before breaking off into a yawn.

“What a damn shame you’re so tired.”

“At least keep the thought in mind. I worry about you, dear.”

“You worry ’bout a lotta things, sounds like.”

“No.” Light rolled onto his left side, his natural sleeping position. “I just worry a lot about two things. Two people.”

It was minutes before Light dozed off, breathing softly through his lips. Aoi focused on the sound, letting it seep into his new resonance. In response, he heard the tinkle of bells against the café’s door, shaped into the cadence of gentle laughter.

Then uncertainty settled in. Clover felt something warm against her forehead, a gentle touch. Aoi‘s stomach twisted when he realized how similar it felt to the kiss Light had planted on his forehead just minutes ago. He had given her the original sensation that she was now replaying in her mind.

_Sorry. Wasn’t thinking,_ he responded quickly. _You’re kinda like a little sister now, so I’m treatin’ you like I treat Akane._

If he could just add a quick, _Forget about it_ , they would never have to talk about this again. They could treat it like a mistake and move on, and Aoi would just have to never kiss her again. Easy. Humanly possible, anyway. Easy if he just ignored his emotions and shoved them back down and pretended to be a robot.

He swallowed and asked, _Is… that okay?_

She remembered someone warm. He thought it was Light, and it was kind of Light, but it was kind of himself, too. Then she spun in a dance of dizzying circles to loud music singing unintelligible euphoria.

_Do you ever just fuckin’ use words?_

On his lips and tongue, he felt the vibration and moisture of blowing a raspberry.

_Cute._

He felt her hugging someone again. He was pretty sure it was himself this time, especially after the hug gave way to that touch on her forehead again.

_Yeah, love you, too._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway as I was saying _CLOVER + AOI BFFS 4EVA **FIGHT ME**_
> 
> that's all thanks for reading

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [switch (redux)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12641427) by [airdeari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari)




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